NCVCE’s Legislative Priorities 2009-2010

 

Background:  The cost of running for office has tripled in the last decade and is continuing to rise.  As the cost goes up candidates are forced to spend increasing amounts of time fundraising.  This in turn creates a money chase in political campaigns which threatens the bonds of trust between the public and government and keeps many qualified leaders from seeking the most powerful decision-making positions in our state. Grassroots, public-interest organizations are harmed by this process because they cannot compete with big industries and wealthy donors in the contributions arms race.  A system that lets those with money buy political power at the expense of regular people harms the democratic process and needs to be reformed. 

 

A program called Voter-Owned Elections provides an alternative to the private campaign financing system and offers the best hope for fundamentally changing the way money works in the system.  Under this program, candidates can receive a public grant to run their campaign if they prove vast community support and agree to strict spending and fundraising limits.  Participating candidates must reject all big money and special interest contributions and instead rely solely on small donors and the public for support.

 

North Carolina has Voter-Owned Elections for candidates running for appellate judge (state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals) three Council of State offices (Commissioner of Insurance, State Auditor, and Superintendent of Public Instruction), and for the town of Chapel Hill.  These programs have high participation and have dramatically reduced the role of narrow interest groups and big money in these elections.  Overall, Voter-Owned Elections has been a big success, enlivening grassroots politics and inspiring more qualified candidates to run for office.  Simply put, when our elected officials are no longer accountable to special interest groups and when qualified candidates can run for office regardless of personal wealth, the public interest is better served.

We call upon the General Assembly to expand Voter-Owned Elections during the 2009-2010 session.

 

·        Expand North Carolina’s successful Council of State program to additional statewide offices  (SB-966 and HB-586).  Candidates for our state’s top executive offices shouldn’t be dependent on a narrow group of financially-interested donors to run for office.  These bills would expand the program to eight of ten Council of State offices, covering all of them except for Governor and Lt. Governor.

 

·        Enact authorization legislation allowing municipalities to create and fund public financing programs for their local elections (HB-120 and SB-938).  Municipalities should be able to create local Voter-Owned Elections programs that level the playing field and make local elections more robust.

 

·        Pass a legislative public financing pilot program (HB-1493 and SB-936).  Ultimately, we need public campaign financing at the legislative level to open up the process and end legislators’ reliance on contributions from PACs and wealthy individuals.  These bills would create a pilot public financing program in six House and three Senate seats beginning in 2012.